Ok everyone, we all have different rules on how FA should be handled and we all agree that people are overpaying for players. We don't mind it so much when we snag the player, but are outraged when we don't.

Unfortunately, like a lot of things (eg the 4th down rule) it's not straightforward. So please think about it and post your ideas in this thread.

One thing I am sure we will do is restrict the number of years allowed to be offered - irrespective of what the player asks for. So if he wants for years and the rule for that season says 2 maximum, no one will be disadvantaged.

Let me say straight away I am not in favour of having a rule where you are only allowed to resign X number of your players. Why? Because some teams will be disadvantaged by this. Some teams will have a lot of players out of contract at the end of season 1 and some might only have a few. You are potentially disadvantaging the teams that have a lot of resigning to take care of straight away - and it's through no cause of the owner. He's simply inherited the RL situation.

The other thing we need to take into account are the "coach packages" you can buy. This gives a team an edge in negotiations and along with XP, the better players get more and more rewarded. The poor get poorer and poorer. That's not good news for leagues like this.

Of course, we don't know yet what EA are going to bestow upon us for next Madden series - they might have overhauled FA bidding completely, but I somehow doubt it.

I must admit im not adverse to continuing fa in its current format. I know it can be frustrating when you miss out on a player. But if you have the cap i guess you can spend it on what you like. If the idea is to try and keep the playing field as level as possible by letting the weaker sides close the gap on the stronger ones. Maybe we could have a tiered approach to fa? For example teams who made the play offs are not allowed to bid on any fa until the second round of bidding to give the weaker sides the oppourtunity to pick players up first? Then Maybe to stop multiple bids on a player in the first stage of fa that might stop them from signing for a team before the second round of fa bidding you could via the forum in reverse order of standings allow each coach who did not make the playoffs nominate one fa they are to target in fa round 1? The player they nominate no one can then bid on unless that player refuses their contract offer and is avaliable in the fa free for all after the draft? Sorry to go on, just my thoughts i guess it would take some additional admin but hopefully not to much?

given that we have some time between SB and the draft , a tier system could be interesting or i could award players to teams.

lets say we are a stage 1 of FA everyone gives me their top 3 players they want from FA and i will award them based on league standings and my idea of a owners strength ( prevention against those who might loose on purpose)

its a lil bit bias but it would give the weaker players a chance at good players first.

after i list the top 32 players for each team then everyone else can bid on the remaining guys freely.

for the assigned guys you must sign them to what they are asking.

i would have little issue with this even though ill be picking at the bottom majority of the time but its important that everyone gets on board.

it would give me extra work and the last thing i want is people bitching about how i look things.

the other option would be to divide owners in tiers and then assign players to those tiers.

Here we go. My idea is simple, easy to apply and to check if someone break the rule

There are 2 needs to address, in my opinion. Have a bunch of good player available for all every year. At the same time, we need to respect who have a Cap to spend.

1. All the teams MUST have 53 players on their roster BEFORE the draft. This would "force" team to split their bet on a lot of players, lowering the highest one to fill the other holes and think to the whole roster not only to the starters.

2. You can raise the base salary, but not the bonus. Bonus have to be what the player ask, salary you can raise free. always considering that you must have 53 players on your roster before the draft.

This system, In my opinion would create an environment where everyone has a chance, but would respect and reflect the differences between the teams in terms of salary Cap.